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The Hugo Awards, the “Puppy Coup” and #GamerGate

First off, I’d like to wish all my readers a very happy and blessed Easter. I was unfortunately forced to attend church by my parents: it’s not what you think, we’re Episcopalian and both our Interim Rector and Bishop are women. Hopefully all of you out there in the alt-right have better churches to visit. And for my Odinist readers, next time you want to torch a church, consider burning an Episcopal one if you can’t find any Unitarian Universalist ones.

Now then, let’s move on to the big story of the weekend: The Hugo Award nominations. Let’s start by looking over the nominees, shall we? I copy/pasted this from their website, with my own observations:

Best Novel

Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit US/Orbit UK)

The Dark Between the Stars, Kevin J. Anderson (Tor Books)

The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) (Tor Books)

Lines of Departure, Marko Kloos (47North)

Skin Game, Jim Butcher (Roc Books)

Best Novella

Big Boys Don’t Cry, Tom Kratman (Castalia House)

“Flow”, Arlan Andrews, Sr. (Analog, 11-2014)

One Bright Star to Guide Them, John C. Wright (Castalia House)

“Pale Realms of Shade”, John C. Wright (The Book of Feasts & Seasons, Castalia House)

“The Plural of Helen of Troy”, John C. Wright (City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis, Castalia House)

Game of Thrones: “The Mountain and the Viper”, written by David Benioff & D. B. Weiss, directed by Alex Graves ((HBO Entertainment in association with Bighead, Littlehead; Television 360; Startling Television and Generator Productions)

Looking through the list, you’ll see that I colored a few different nominees. The ones colored in bright red are nominees from Brad R. Torgenson’s “Sad Puppies” slate. The ones colored in dark red (or maroon if you want to be picky) are from Vox Day’s “Rabid Puppies” slate. A number of nominations were on both slates, but I colored them bright red since Sad Puppies was the more well-known one.

I’m sure regular TRV readers are well aware of what the “Puppies” slates are. For those of you not in the know, let me explain. The Hugo Awards are a yearly series of awards presented by the World Science Fiction Society for outstanding work in the science fiction/fantasy genre. They date all the way back to 1953 and are awarded during the annual World Science Fiction Convention, or “Worldcon” as it’s known. A number of right-leaning or even moderately leftist SFF writers have pointed out that the SFF community, and by proxy, the Hugo Awards, are controlled by an elitist clique of Social Justice Warriors who demand that everything fit within their bounds of political acceptability. Obviously, the awards themselves are not rigged, we’ll get to that later. But the voting process of the Hugos is privy to the manipulation of the masses through soapbox demagoguery and media manipulation of the public narrative. Sound familiar? It should.

Sad Puppies, and now Rabid Puppies as well, are all part of an effort to push back against that. The goal is simple: create a slate of works for prospective voters to nominate. While the slates are curated based on what the curator in question thinks are objectively good works, special preference is given to works that were ignored or overlooked by the SJW elite, sometimes just because the author was too white and male, or more likely he happened to have the wrong political opinions. It’s an effort to fight back against SJWs.

Now then, go back and look at that list. All but one of the Hugo Awards have a Sad Puppy candidate eligible. Two categories ONLY have Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies candidates. While this is the third annual Sad Puppies slate and the first Rabid Puppies one, this is the most effective push to date. Both Sad and Rabid Puppies have stormed the gates and forcibly occupied the Hugos. This is not a revolution. This is a coup. A Puppy Coup.

The rage from SJWs is there, and it’s visible. There’s an overwhelming demand to change the Hugo Award nomination process so that the Puppies can’t “game” the system. Some people want a change in the rules to make creators with non-kosher opinions automatically ineligible. Most are insisting that people choose the “No Award” option over giving any Puppy-approved candidate a vote. I’ve seen at least one goony beard-man who thinks that the 2015 Hugos should just be canceled altogether. This is a collective SJW meltdown, and it’s glorious.

This is what #GamerGate needs to watch and take note of. The Puppies brute-forced their way into the Hugos and took control of the nominations. They have the numbers and the outreach to take control. #GamerGate most likely has even more raw manpower than they do. We’ve shown our ability to take control of a twitter hashtag and shut down any SJW discussion. We’re so effective that our opponents had to build a bot just to hide from us. If that bot is taken down, then it won’t be long before the SJW twitter exodus begins. We need to take a page from the Puppy playbook and be more aggressive and organized in our efforts to take back gaming.

When award season rolls around next year, #GamerGate should already have built our own slate. Then it’s a matter of mobilizing voters for the march on the ballot box. In the case of the Hugos, the Puppy forces have already explained how it works and are even recruiting from #GamerGate. Hell, if I could come up with 40 bucks for the Sasquan supporting membership fee, I’d be filling out my ballot right now. Then we inevitably watch as #GamerGate breaches the gate and dominates the awards scene. Remember TotalBiscut’s win last year and the fallout that ensued? Imagine something ten times as big. Even if our slate isn’t entirely about spiting SJWs, it would still showcase how much power and influence #GamerGate has. Because in the end, it’s about power. It’s about reminding the SJWs that they don’t own gaming: we do. The Puppy Coup is an amazing show of force that will go down in SFF history. Let’s make sure #GamerGate can pull off something just as awe-inspiring.

7 thoughts on “The Hugo Awards, the “Puppy Coup” and #GamerGate”

One of the things that’s interesting about this is it goes to show just how few people had been involved in the past when it came to handing out the supposedly most prestigious award in all of science fiction and fantasy. If half a dozen authors can say “Hey, all you have to do is shell out $40 and you can vote for whomever you want!” and fans actually register to vote for things, well all of the former gatekeepers of sci-fi fandom are suddenly losing their minds. You’d think that people in Camo fatigues and rifles took over their precious little award by firing guns in the air and telling everybody to get on the ground and in the corner, not that they told people “give this organization some money so you’re eligible to vote”.

Sorry to leave comment here, off-topic I know:
thank you for going after that Bobby asshole!
he came after us big time a year ago, found out we were not what he thought, so he goes away with a big “well if you ever do this or that…” no apologies for the crap he put us through
I know nothing about gamergate at all, but after reading a little it seemed he was threatening us with the very same tactics that they claim gamergate uses
I don’t have the means, money or connections to go after him, makes one feel helpless… praying that he pisses off the wrong person who will either sue his ass or at least punch him in the mouth
also, here’s some audio Bobby HATES that he can’t get taken off the net:http://wibx950.com/how-ugly-is-utica-politics-exclusive-audio/

I did email you this yesterday. Maybe went to your junk?
here’s my real email (accidently attached my fake email I use for posting on Bobby’s blog):

[REDACTED BY REQUEST OF COMMENTER]

I don’t have much more info but glad to help if I can- I know he doesn’t like that audio I linked to you!
Also- is there any site that explains gamergate more simply? Guess I’m too old. I read Bobby’s recent post on it but he goes off on comparing gamergate to isis? then blabs about isis more? so confusing, then he goes on to talks about his own background, blah blah blah, then he talks about gamergate more and how parents have to watch out, but he doesn’t give any real examples, just too confusing to understand…

I’m no writer, but I know a good one when I see it- your posts with Bobby were written extremely well, made him look like an idot

Despite the name being coined semi-jokingly by actor Adam Baldwin, it’s very much the Watergate of the tech and gaming world: What started with simple allegations of abuse has lead to uncovering an appalling amount of unscrupulous behavior in the game journalism community, all justified through the “social justice warrior” mentality (Basically a bunch of more subtle Bobbys- the ends always justify the means, even if the means are destructive and divisive). The result is a variety of gamers from different socioeconomic backgrounds coming together to try and address both these pretty appalling ethical breaches and the divisive cultural warmongering.

That explanation makes sense. It is a billion dollar industry that’s relatively new with no oversight really, that’s a good mix for corruption… Maybe like the old rock and roll days when DJs were paid by record companies to play their music. That went on for a long time before people noticed.